Edward Snowden Is Seriously Becoming a Diva

MOSCOW – Edward Snowden’s diva-like demands are responsible for his remaining sequestered in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport. Mr. Snowden has been living in a Red Roof Inn executive suite there since arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong on July 23.

According to sources close to the situation, Mr. Snowden, 30, could choose asylum in several countries, including Venezuela, Ecuador, Namibia, and the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, but his increasing list of demands regarding the flight that takes him to his chosen country is making his situation more difficult than it needs to be.

“I have seen tour riders from pop musicians appearing in Russia,” said Genri Reznik, a Moscow lawyer who is often called the Russian Bill Graham, “and Mr. Snowden’s demands make them look like watered down vodka.”

 Although Mr. Reznik was not allowed more than a brief look at Mr. Snowden’s asylum-flight demands, the ones he could recall lent credence to his claim: a supply of Riddles, the chewy candy by Skittles® in which the flavors don’t always match the colors. Albums, in vinyl, by Neutral Milk Hotel, Wilco (early CDs only), Radiohead (Kid A only), The Strokes, and others. House-baked tortilla chips and vegan blueberry muffins from Whole Foods. Three copies of Lowboy by John Wray, and a stripper’s pole for Mr. Snowden’s traveling companion.

Mr. Snowden fled the United States with several lap top’s worth of highly classified government documents and the complete Facebook user-names-and-passwords database. He stole those documents while working as an infrastructure analyst at the National Security Agency.

He leaked information from several of the stolen documents–describing the extent to which the United States spies on its own citizens–to news outlets likeWired,The Guardian,Runner’s World, andVegetarian Times.